9. Chapter 9

Finn, Poe, and Rose can be devious when they put their minds to it— when they set aside their differences and work as a team, united by one common goal It's why the galaxy hasn't collapsed in on itself in the months following the end of the conflict between the First Order and the Resistance. It's why Rey is having tea in the mess hall with Finn while Ben remains upstairs with Poe and Rose.

"Time to brainstorm," Poe had announced, and Finn had chimed in to say that, actually, he was feeling a bit peckish.

"Why don't you go down to the mess hall while we get started in here— you know, to save time," Rose had suggested, conveniently failing to point out that Finn had just demolished an entire bag of moss chips.

"Great idea!" Finn had said. "Let's go, Rey." And he'd taken her arm and ushered her out into the corridor so expediently that she hadn't been able to protest— had only managed to glance back at Ben, whose face was rapidly draining of color like she was leaving him to his doom, before Poe shut the door.

It had all gone like clockwork. Her friends had quite neatly separated her and Ben for the talk that Rey can sense is coming. She sips her Deychin tea and takes a bite out of her molecularly agitated cheese sandwich, and she waits.

The mess hall is mostly deserted, the work day being in full swing. Still, Finn had led her to a table for two in the corner, out of earshot of the Twi'leks helping themselves to piles of raw munch-fungus soaked in broth, the Bothans slurping on glowing turquoise noodles, and the Quarrens popping squirming nudibranchs into their tentacled mouths.

Despite his own tea and sandwich laid out in front of him, Finn abandons all pretense of being hungry. "So." He clasps his hands together atop the table, leaning forward.

"So," echoes Rey.

He sighs. "Look. You told me what went down in the Sith Eternal's lair and of course I believe you, but the thing is— Poe, Rose, and I, we only know this man from our own experiences with him. We only know him as Kylo Ren. It's going to be very difficult for us to separate past from present, and what that means, Rey, is there's bound to be hiccups during this little field trip. If I— if we say or do anything that''ll disrupt the peace, I need you to understand that it comes from a place of being worried about you."

Her brow knits in confusion. "Why are you worried about me?"

"Well, for starters, you've practically been living in exile—"

"I have not—"

"You said you were going to Tatooine just to bury the lightsabers," Finn interrupts. "A few weeks later, you went back and you stayed."

There is something rising to the surface of his energy signature— a deep sense of betrayal that she feels him willfully suppress before it can consume him. Finn's natural attunement to the Force is more emotional than physical; it had been what shielded him from the stormtrooper program's rigorous brainwashing, it had ensured that he remained wholly himself. In these new days, he has learned— with a little initial training from Rey— how to use the Force to gauge a situation and prevent his emotions from getting the better of him.

In this respect, he is a better diplomat than Poe, although Rey supposes that the resurrection of the former Supreme Leader and Master of the Knights of Ren would be a curveball for anyone.

"I like Tatooine," she mumbles, looking down at her half-eaten sandwich.

"Nobody likes Tatooine," Finn retorts. "People just exist there. It's hardly what anyone in their right mind would call a life."

"Your point being?" she asks stiffly.

"I know that Ren—" He pauses a beat too long before making the correction— "that Ben Solo and what happened to him was a major factor in your decision to isolate yourself. Now that he's back, your energy signature is more..." Finn waves a hand as if hoping to pluck the right words from thin air. "It's solider, somehow. More present. It hasn't been like that since— well, since the war ended."

Rey finally brings herself to meet her friend's gaze. His bewilderment is genuine, but so is his concern. "Ben and I are a dyad in the Force," she tells him— tells someone, at last. At long last. "We're two halves of the same soul. When he died, it felt like part of me had been ripped away."

Finn's shoulders slump at the weight of this new information. "I realized that there was something. The way you were so sad, how hard you fought to clear his name... I realized that you had feelings for him, even though I didn't understand how you possibly could. But I had no idea that the bond ran so deep. I wish you would've let us help. We care about you."

She blinks away tears. "No one could have helped me. I relocated to Tatooine because it was easier to not be surrounded by people who were happy that the war was over, people who moved on like nothing happened..."

Finn looks at her sharply. "Poe drank two bottles of oil-rig whiskey in the course of a single weekend because Snap Wexley's starfighter went down over Exegol," he points out. "Rose still cries about Paige when she thinks no one is watching."

Rey flinches. "I— I didn't know."

"You weren't here." It's more a calm statement of a fact than a reproach, but she can't help the guilt that comes seeping in before he continues, "My point is, we all lost somebody, but here on Coruscant we're carrying one another through it as we do the work that needs to be done. I regret that we weren't able to carry you, too."

"It's not your fault. As I said, no one could have helped." Rey feels oddly selfish for saying all of this, but she owes her friend the truth. "With Ben, the loss is— was— physical. What he and I have, it's— different."

"Just because it's different doesn't mean it's good for you," Finn counters.

Rey immediately goes on the defensive. "Can we not do this right now?" she snaps. "It isn't as if I'm unaware of all that Ben has done— I was there for quite a few of them— but I wouldn't be here now, having tea with you, if it weren't for him. And, stars, Finn, you know Palpatine was pulling the strings right from the start—"

"That doesn't excuse—"

"You're saying that because you were able to make a choice!" Her heightened tone causes the Bothans to look over at their table; she grits her teeth and lowers her voice. "Poe was there for you, because of him you were able to escape the First Order, to run. But Ben didn't have anyone to help him. He was alone." She swallows. "Like I was, before I met you."

Rey holds Finn's gaze, pouring two years' worth of friendship forged in fire into the connection. Wearing her heart on her sleeve, willing him to understand— or, at the very least, to come to terms—

"It wasn't easy for me," he says softly. "I made a choice to leave everything I ever knew. There was no mercy for defectors who got caught. And if Poe hadn't been there, I would have found some other way out. I don't think that makes me better than anyone else, but I do think it means something."

"I wasn't implying—" She stops, hanging her head. She has tunnel vision when it comes to Ben. She hadn't considered how her words would come across. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too. I'll do what I can to make the situation less fraught, but afterwards..." Finn shrugs. "It's not that difficult to pardon a dead man. Hell, even to call him a hero, who turned at the last minute. I truly don't know what's going to happen now that he's not dead."

"We'll figure it out," Rey vows.

We have to, she thinks.

They finish their meal in silence.

☾✩☽

Poe had dropped the vaguely congenial act once Finn and Rey left the room. A while has passed since then; currently, his arms are crossed, and he and Rose are fixing Ben with hard stares while the latter lounges in his chair as insouciantly as he can given the fact that BB-8 is a tiny round menace beside him, ready to deliver another electric jolt to his ribs at the slightest provocation.

"Are you in collusion with the First Order remnant?" Poe demands.

It's a struggle to not roll his eyes, but Ben somehow manages. "If I were, I wouldn't be here."

"You could be leading us into a trap," Poe insists. "You faked your death and lay low until things calmed down so you could strike when we least expect it— didn't you?"

"You're giving me far too much credit, Dameron," Ben drawls.

The other man opens his mouth to argue, but Rose cuts him off. "He has a point, Poe. From what Rey's told us about this guy, he's not the devious type. Honestly, I doubt he's smart enough to play the long game like that."

Ben glowers at her. "And what exactly did Rey tell you?"

Rose glowers right back. "That you stormed a Sith Lord's fortress of evil armed with nothing but a single blaster, dressed in your pajamas."

He arches a brow. "Did she actually say pajamas?"

"Well— no." The commander smirks. "But that's how I like to imagine it."

"I'm so glad," Poe huffs, "that we've switched to discussing Kylo Ren's wardrobe choices instead of the more important matters at hand."

"That's not my name anymore," Ben says, keeping his tone level and firm even though hearing the aforementioned name is like a punch to the gut.

"Yeah? You liked it well enough when you turned your back on General Organa—" Poe's lips abruptly clamp together. He stalks over to a shelf across the room, as far away from Ben as possible, and he leans against it as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

Ben suddenly finds the wall to be of great interest; out of the corner of his eye, Rose fidgets uneasily, looking from one man to the other and then back again.

Should've stayed dead, Ben muses to himself with a hint of the sardonic bitterness that had become all too familiar as time wore on. It is more excruciating than he could ever have braced for, being in the galaxy again and having to face the people who keenly felt the echoes of his sins, but it is what it is. There is no other way out but through. He will have to accept the blow of each moment in order to move on to the next, and perhaps at the end of it all there will be some form of redemption that'll enable Rey's friends to think more kindly of him.

Not that he particularly cares for their opinion, but Poe and Finn and Rose are important to Rey. Ben has no wish to continue being a source of fracture in her relationship with them.

From beyond the veil of the life after, his mother's voice whispers into his mind, telling him what he needs to say.

Or, to be more accurate, what Poe needs to hear.

"I have made peace with Leia Organa," Ben explains into the tense silence. "We speak on occasion, when she comes to me in the Force."

"And how can I be sure that you're not lying?" Poe asks, looking at him with weary eyes.

Ben meets his gaze, unflinching. "Naboo, Endor, Ben, three four two," he says simply.

A muscle clenches along Poe's jaw at this— Leia's personal code. BB-8 recognizes it as well; chirping mournfully, he retracts his arc welder and backs away from Ben, his hostility vanishing.

"Her mother, her wedding, her son," Poe mumbles to himself, his features collapsing with a piercing grief that resonates through Ben's own heart. "Commander Tico?" Poe turns to Rose. "What is your assessment?"

Rose studies Ben for several long moments before finally saying, "I think we have to trust Rey. And— and Leia."

"Fine." Poe walks back to his desk, his steps uncharacteristically slow and ponderous, almost defeated. He all but sags into his chair. "Fine," he repeats. "We'll work together for now."

Don't be a smartass, don't be a smartass, Ben's common sense pleads, but he couldn't have held back any more than he could have refrained from sneezing. "I thought we were already doing that. Isn't accusing your allies of treachery the first step of any reasonable plan?"

Poe grips his datapad like he wants to chuck it at Ben's head. "Watch it, Solo."

☾✩☽

"You can stop interrogating him now," Rey announces as she troops back into Poe's office with Finn.

Poe attempts a half-hearted Who, me? expression, slouched in his swivel chair with his booted feet propped up on his desk, but Rose offers a wry, faintly apologetic smile. Rey supposes she can't begrudge her friends too much— they're only looking out for her, and they have to take into account their duty to keep the Galactic Alliance safe while they're at it.

She walks over to Ben, who's sitting rigidly across from Poe but observes her approach with something like relief. "Everything all right?" she asks quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"As well as can be expected." Ben reaches up to cover her hand with his much larger one, his thumb stroking across her knuckles.

Finn looks like he's about to be violently ill. Rose examines her fingernails. Poe's jaw drops.

Rey silently dares any of them to utter a single word.

"Yeah, so— I'm not going to deal with that right now," Poe declares after a short pause. "I'm at, like, emotional capacity. Let's just talk about the mission."

Rose is all too glad to take that as her cue. "While you were at the mess hall, I messaged with the Outer Rim contact who tipped us off," she says to Finn and Rey. "He might know a way to get us into Durga the Hutt's palace. We'll rendezvous with him at Nar Shaddaa."

Finn groans. "Why there?"

"And why do we have to infiltrate Durga's palace?" Rey adds.

"Our contact has been unable to gain any additional information remotely. According to him, our best bet is to crack Durga or his advisors," Rose explains. "The Cartel has eyes everywhere in Hutt Space, but especially on their homeworld. It's easier to hold a clandestine preliminary meeting on the moon that orbits it, and holding said meeting is far better than going into Nal Hutta blind."

"Nar Shaddaa is just— such a dump, that's all," Finn grumbles. "Why can't we ever go somewhere nice?"

"What, like Canto Bight?" Rose quips, and he flashes a reluctant if somewhat abashed grin.

Poe speaks up. "General Ematt will hold down the fort while we're away. Finn, Rose, we should talk to him before we leave— don't worry, we'll be vague," he assures Rey as he catches sight of her concerned expression. "We won't say anything about Force resurrections and all that. But Ematt does need to know that three fellow members of High Command will be gone for a while."

Rey nods. "Ben and I will wait for you on the Falcon, then." A thought occurs to her. "Who are we rendezvousing with on Nar Shaddaa?"

Poe, Finn, and Rose exchange glances.

"That's classified information," Poe carefully replies. "It will be dispensed on a need-to-know basis."

"Well, Ben and I definitely need to know, since we're meeting with him," Rey says, annoyed. "We'll find out when we get there, anyway—"

"Exactly," says Finn. "You'll find out when we get there."

"We have to protect the identities of our contacts as much as possible," Rose tells Rey gently. "It's Galactic Alliance policy. Our intelligence network could collapse if we don't take the necessary precautions."

"And you still don't trust Ben," Rey snaps, her temper rising. "That's it, isn't it?" Her friends don't say anything in response, but the looks on their faces speak volumes. "What, do you think he's going to dash off a communique to the First Order remnant while we're traveling, or—"

Ben tightens his grip on her hand. She peers down at him. "It's all right," he says, solemn and soothing.

Rey takes a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. Were she in Poe, Finn, and Rose's shoes, this is the best way to minimize the risks of a confusing situation littered with so many unknown variables. Logically, she realizes that— but she doesn't like it.

"Fine," she grits out. "Let's go, Ben." To the others, she issues a curt, "See you on the ship."

☾✩☽

Rey's still fuming as they exit the main building of Galactic Alliance headquarters. Ben thinks she's adorable, all furrowed brow and scrunched-up nose, and it is both strange and somewhat wonderful to have someone defend him, even though he's aware that he doesn't truly deserve it.

But it also means that she's too preoccupied to notice that they're nearing the mysterious white pillar in the middle of the courtyard until he stops walking so he can study it.

"Don't—" Rey starts to say, but it's too late.

The Aurebesh symbols etched into the ivory surface are all names. The names of Resistance members and allies who died in the conflict.

It's a memorial.

Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, Ben reads. Admiral Gial Ackbar. Corporal Paige Tico. And so on and on.

Then there are inscriptions for The lost souls of the Hosnian system. The lost souls of Kijimi. Too many to have been named one by one. It wouldn't all have fit on a single pillar, or even dozens.

Seeing the war laid out like this, captured forever in immovable lines of cold white marble and bright golden sunlight, Ben feels as though he is made of glass. Ready to shatter at any moment.

I did this, he thinks numbly. All of this blood is on my hands.

His eyes drift to a point near the base, in the center, and his breath catches in his throat.

They'd given his father and his uncle their old Rebel Alliance commissions. General Han Solo. General Luke Skywalker.

Beside General Leia Organa is carved an upside-down triangle composed of interlacing curves— the Crest of Alderaan.

And below that is written—

Ben Solo.

"I fought to have your name put there, with your family." Rey's crying now, her fists clenched at her sides. "I told High Command that they owed me for killing Palpatine. It was the one thing I asked of them." Her hazel eyes flash, fierce and defiant and tear-stained. "I'll never regret it. No matter what."